In 2012, an open microphone caught President Barack Obama telling the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, “After my election, I have more flexibility.”

The president’s words unmasked his resolution to propitiate Vladimir Putin on contentious issues. Freed from electoral constraints, Obama had expanded his principle of “flexibility” to embrace virtually all of America’s dangerous adversaries, while he increasingly betrays traditional democratic allies.

The administration has prematurely lifted sanctions against Iran in the delusional attempt to entice a revolutionary Iranian regime to renounce its implacable nuclear ambitions. The administration has provoked bitter disputes with decent democratic India over the trivial issue of an Indian diplomat allegedly employing an illegal alien for a maid. Meanwhile, the president has responded meekly while China bullies America’s Asian allies with mounting frequency and audacity.

But no democratic ally has born the brunt of Obama’s second term “flexibility” more than Israel.

The president has given full vent to his longstanding, deep and unwise convictions – siding with the Palestinians and turning on Israel. In a recent interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, the president warned of Israel’s bleak future if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a U.S. drafted framework for peace with the Palestinians.

Obama insisted on Israel accepting “a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state – a requirement that would sever a geographically tiny, existentially vulnerable Israel, making it almost impossible to defense.

Obama has simultaneously pressed Israel to cease assassinating Iran’s nuclear scientists. The administration has used the IRS to harass pro-Israeli organizations critical of the Obama’s foreign policy. The president’s defense budget slashed $200 million in U.S funding for Israel’s missile defense program despite the Israeli Defense Force recently intercepting a Gaza-bound shipment of Syrian missiles from Iran. The administration has raised insuperable obstacles to an effective Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program.

Yet Abbas has categorically refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Nor will Abbas abandon what Netanyahu rightly calls “the fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of refugees” based on a dubious and unprecedented United Nation’s definition of the term.

Obama has declined likewise to accept Netanyahu’s core condition that “just as Israel is prepared to recognize a Palestinian state, Palestinians must be prepared to accept a Jewish state.”

On the contrary, the administration has announced that the President “does not consider it necessary for Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” Nor will the administration require Palestinians to give up the right of return as the basis for an agreement.

The administration’s plan for “Peace in our Time” would leave Palestinians in a stronger position than ever to eradicate the only vigorous, vigilant democracy in a region swarming with tyrannies that range from the merely hostile to the fanatically anti-American.

Netanyahu told President Obama at the White House that the “Israeli people expect me to stand strong against criticism and pressure.” Netanyahu hoped, moreover, that Obama could appreciate that Israel cannot permit Iran “to have the ability to make an atomic bomb.”

Netanyahu should never underestimate, however, Obama’s determination to impose his ill-will on Israel, regardless of the consequences. Ultimately, the administration may deliver a crushing blow to Israel at the United Nations, voting to recognize a Palestinian State or refraining from exercising the U.S. veto to prevent it. No democratic ally can count on the United States under the Obama administration .

Robert G. Kaufman is a professor of public policy at Pepperdine University.

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